New Car Department Professionalism

March 2006

Background

Prior to joining Comengine Robert Lane wanted to research the New Car Sales people to see what level their sales skill set is compared to overseas.

Our Role

We wanted to become familiar with the current market strengths and weaknesses in order to see the impact of OEM sales training.

Our Process

Comengine researched the market by walking into over 20 metropolitan dealers in Shanghai and trying to buy a car.

Assessment would be based on the following standards:

• Meet and greet – introduction
• Product knowledge
• Appearance
• Sales approach – the "Road to the Sale"
• Ask for name and number
• Follow-up

Deliverables

3 days of researching various new car dealerships concluded:

• meet and greet – most dealerships had polite sales staff
• product Knowledge – most dealer sales people had good product knowledge
• Appearance – most were neat and tidy
• Most did not follow the “Road to a Sale” and were not in control of the process at any time
• 2 out of 20 asked for a card or name and number
• None followed-up

Conclusion

• Shanghai dealerships were employing too many sales people and most were very young. In many cases they did not have a driver’s license and were demonstrating cars they did not understand.
• How can they empathize with the client if they do not have these basic attributes?
• They were overall pretty poor regardless of franchise.